Southern Miss point guard John Wade III is suing the NCAA to challenge the bylaws of the eligibility timeline, which only allows players five calendar years to play four seasons of competition.
Wade was recently denied an eligibility extension waiver by the NCAA after he did not play his freshman year of college at UC Davis as he did not have any college offers out of high school. The lawsuit, filed in the Mississippi Southern District U.S. District Court in Hattiesburg, requested an injunction that would prevent the NCAA from keeping Wade from playing with the team. Judge Taylor McNeel is assigned to the case.
Wade is making two separate arguments as to why he should be allowed to play.
"If he had gone to high school and gone to one of these feeder prep schools for college sports, then he could still play this year," Wade's Attorney, Clark Hicks, told The Pine Belt News on Monday. "If he had sat out and worked or been on a team and redshirted, that doesn't count against the eligibility (but) the fact that he was an academic student, they are counting that against his five years. We think it's arbitrary and capricious and against the spirit of the rules."
Wade's waiver was initially denied on July 23, but Southern Miss' final appeal was denied on Nov. 17. Finally, on Dec. 3, the NCAA canceled the request for reconsideration and left intact its original denial.
Wade's collegiate basketball career began when he transferred to junior college Contra Costa College, where he was with the program for three seasons from 2019 to 2022. The school did not play basketball in the 2020-21 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the complaint, Wade spent the 2022-23 season at Cal State Northridge, where he took a medical redshirt. The redshirt was taken for mental health after Wade experienced verbal and physical abuse from the then-head coach Trent Johnson.
The lawsuit states that Johnson intentionally knocked a bottle of water out of Wade's hand, grabbed him by the shirt and threw a basketball at the back of his head. Wade and another were asked about their mental state in front of the entire team and were regularly told by the coach that he did not want them to be part of the team or participate in team events. Wade saw mental health professionals and the CSUN submitted a hardship waiver to the Big West Conference on Wade's behalf. Although Wade was granted an extra season to play, the year still counted towards his five years of overall eligibility.
After the season at CSUN, Wade then transferred to Cal State Stanislaus, a Division II school, where he used his COVID year of eligibility. That year he averaged 12.3 points per game and 5.5 rebounds before arriving at Southern Miss.
"We contend that one of two things should have happened," Clark said. "They should have given him the (medical) hardship and extended his eligibility or not count his freshman year against his eligibility because he didn't play."
Wade's case brings a similar argument to on the ruling of Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, who was recently granted an injunction by a federal judge in Tennessee just five days earlier. However, Pavia's case is not the final ruling, but it prevents the NCAA from keeping him out of college football until the case is resolved. Like Pavia's injunction, Wade is also arguing that the eligibility clock impacts his ability for NIL compensation.
"The second reason I got involved was because of what I think is a monumental decision that came out a few days ago with the Diego Pavia case," Clark said. "If it's upheld then it would apply to our case. The idea is that because there is NIL compensation, that is a business enterprise. The NCAA rules restraint of trade on athletes because athletes that go to junior college or play Division II - they don't have a right to NIL compensation."
In Pavia's case, the court ruled that the five-year eligibility clock violates the Sherman Act, which is an antitrust federal statute.
"We were not only arguing his individual circumstances, but now we have the argument that his two years of play at Contra Costa College and third year of play was at a Division II school," Clark said. "The ability for him to get NIL compensation is material, and he's being denied that right under the five-year eligibility rule."
Clark hopes that the court will make a ruling within two to three weeks. Southern Miss has already begun conference play and returns to action against William Carey on Dec. 30.
"John Wade has done everything he is supposed to do. He is not responsible for anything that happened to him. He has excelled in school. He has a mathematics degree and is a graduate student. He has the opportunity to play Division I basketball at the end of his college career and maybe earn NIL compensation, and he has been denied all of that.
"We think we have a strong and compelling case for him individually and collectively."
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